Say Something
by staringatstars07
Summary: " I love you, bro." Raph snorts. "Man, don't say that sappy stuff. You know it makes me itch."


"Hey, Raph."

"Mikey, you little knumbskull, where's the pizza? It's been forever since you left. You get lost or something?"

The hand wrapped around Michelangelo's plastron rises slightly as he breathes in as deep as he can manage. " Sorry, Raph. You might have to send Don to get the pizza." He's sitting on the floor of a phone booth, the phone cradled against his ear. When Raph speaks again, all traces of irritation in his voice are gone, replaced by the singular worry that sometimes keeps him up at night.

"Mike, are you alright? Where are you? Me and Leo can-"

A wet cough cuts him off. "Don't," Mikey gasps. "Don't leave. Don't hang up. I don't think," he pauses. "I really don't think I can handle being alone now." The coughing takes something out of him. Literally. It's sticky and gummy in his mouth. Mike turns to the side to spit, splattering some dark substance across the concrete.

Mikey makes a face. "Bleh. Gross." He can still taste copper in his mouth.

* * *

It feels like he's sinking, like he's underwater, watching the sun drift farther and farther away. He tries to gather the energy to fight it, or at least feel frightened, but energy just doesn't seem to be something he has. Heck, he spent just about all of it just trying to get to the phone booth.

Distantly, he can hear yelling. "-ike? Mike!" He rouses himself, strains to pull himself together enough to form a coherent sentence.

"Yeah, Raph?"

"Don't you dare fall asleep on me, man. I mean it! I'll come over there and bust your shell, ya hear? Leo and Donnie are on their way."

"T-phone's broken," mumbles Mikey, words slurring.

"Yeah, yeah, we know. But it's still sending out a signal. So just hang tight, okay? Don's gonna patch ya up in no time."

Sighing, Mikey lifts his hand away from his wound and hunches over to take stock of it. Grey peeks out from the tear in his plastron. For some reason, he'd always assumed his insides would be more colorful. Maybe they changed colors when they hit air? He didn't know. He'd have to ask Donnie if he ever got the chance.

Man, he's exhausted. Not even the training Master Splinter makes them do when they're grounded makes him this sleepy. If only he could close his eyes… It wouldn't be for long… Maybe a second…

"MIKEY!"

He snaps awake. "What?" His chest is heavy. Can't Raph see he just wants to sleep?

"Mike, you gotta keep talking to me, man. Say anything." There's so much urgency in his brother's voice that Mikey can't say no, so he does his best to stay awake. He's never heard his brother so scared before and he doesn't like it. He especially doesn't like the fact that he's the reason his brother sounds so scared. When it comes to him, his brothers should be all laughter and smiles. 'Course, smirks, indulgent nods, and incoherent rage were also acceptable forms of acknowledgement.

Saying the first thing that comes to mind, Mike blurts into the mouthpiece, "I don't think I ever finished the third level of that racing game Casey let me borrow." He'd just been getting the hang of the controls, too.

A relieved sigh meets his words. "That's fine, Mike. We can finish it when you get back."

Grinning, Mikey nods. His brothers rarely wanted to play videogames with him, anymore. The grin fades as black rushes his vision. He watches, fascinated, as the phone disappears into what looks like a pool of ink. He can still feel the phone in his hand and his ears are= working fine, but losing his sight kind of feels like a bad sign.

"Hey, Raph?" Did the phone always weigh a hundred pounds?

"Yeah, Mikey?"

"How long until Leo and D get here, do you think?"

"Not long. They'll be there in no time."

"Oh, good… Raph?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you, bro."

Raph snorts. "Man, don't say that sappy stuff. You know it makes me itch." He waits for his brother to say something witty in reply, but the only answer he gets is the sound of a passing car. "Mike? Mikey? Hey, come on, say something. This isn't funny." As the seconds tick by and quickly turn into minutes, his breath speeds up to join the rush of blood in his ears."You're listening, right? Probably laughing your shell off right now, ain't ya? Well, I'm not going to fall for it this time, Mike. I know you ain't… I know you ain't dead."

There's a sound of breathing on the other end, but it's labored and slow. Slowing. Stopping.

"Mikey? Mike, don't do this. I'm beggin' ya."

A few minutes after the sound of breathing on the other end of the phone stops, Raph hears Leo and Donnie enter the booth, followed by their shouts and the rhythmic thump of CPR. He hears Leo wrap his arms around the only younger brother they have left as he lets loose a tortured sob.

The phone clicks, followed by a dial tone. His breath catches in his throat. Suddenly, it doesn't matter how many lights are on in the lair or in all of New York because Raphael knows he's never going to see his baby brother's smile again and there's nothing but darkness in a future without it.

"… _No_."

* * *

It isn't until Leo and Donnie trudge into the lair with Michelangelo slung over their shoulders that Raph finally puts down the phone. They lay the body on the couch and wait - what they're waiting for, though, they haven't got a clue. Maybe they're waiting for someone to take charge, to tell them how they can possibly go to sleep that night knowing they'll have to bury their baby brother in the morning. But Master Splinter is in Japan. It's just them. There's no one there to help them carry a burden that will leave them bent and broken for the rest of their lives.

As usually, Leo steps up. He orders Don to cover Mikey up. "It'll be like he's sleeping, Don." And Donatello obeys. More than that, he drags his own sheets and pillows from his room so he can sleep next to Mikey, one last time. Wordlessly, Raph and Leo do the same.

The next morning, the brothers wrap Mikey in a sheet and bury him in the ground under the wide-open sky. It was a risk, going out in the open to dig a six-foot hole, but it was worth it. Dead or alive, they're brother deserves to rest under the sun.

After that, Don retreats into his lab, trying to find out where he's gone wrong - what invention hasn't he made that could have saved his brother's life? – and Leo withdraws into his meditation. As for Raph, the second they got back from their impromptu funeral, he gathered all the parts and pieces of the phone into his arms and locked himself in his room.

It isn't until Leo wakes up in the middle of the night to hear a voice speaking that he discovers what his brother is doing.

Groggy and irritated, Leo throws the covers off, wrenches his door open, marches straight to Raphael's room, and… stops.

"You would have liked the weather today, I mean." A groan. "Jeez, I can't believe I'm trying to tell you about the weather. Lame, right?" Leo presses his ear to the door, not believing what he's hearing. "Don's been scrambling his brains trying to figure out how we could have saved you, but if I had just gone with you, none of this would have happened. You'd be sleeping in your bed right now and I wouldn't be half out of my mind." There's a heavy breath. "Hey, Mikey? You… know I love you, right? I didn't say it when I should have, but I'm saying it now because it's true and I want you to hear it. I really hope you hear me." After a long pause, Leo hears the sound of plastic hitting plastic and scrambles to get back into his room without alerting his brother to his presence.

The next night, he gets up again to hear much of the same. The weather is nice, Don refuses to leave his room, and some stuff about him. Most of it's insulting, but sometimes Raph would say something like, "I just wish he'd stop trying so hard to act like everything's okay, because it's not. It's never _going_ to be okay."

When Raph drags himself out of bed for the breakfast the next morning, he sees Fearless sitting at the table, waiting to have breakfast with the family.

Another night comes around and Leo finds that someone else already listening at the door. "Don," Leo whispers, "what are you doing here?"

Donnie frowns at him. "Same thing as you. I want to listen to Raph talk to Mikey." Leo stares at him for a moment, considering, then nods, and they both listen as Raph tells Mikey about how Leo had dragged Don out of the lab for breakfast.

When Raph finally runs out of things to say, he says the same thing he always does before he places the phone down and shuts off the lights, "I love you, Mikey."

* * *

A/N:

Written for the tumblr prompt: Person B knowing they're undoubtedly about to die within the next few seconds, likely from the gaping wound they're bleeding out from. Instead of calling for help, they phone Person A and carry on a casual conversation as if nothing is wrong, making sure they mention how much they love them before their time runs out.

You can thank my sister for the extra 1,000 or so words. I spoke with her about the first draft and she told me that the ending was too sudden to be really impactful, so on the drive back from college, I bounced Raph's reaction off her and she liked it. Thus, Say Something was born.

After a certain amount of time, I think talking to Mikey on the phone (which isn't even plugged into the wall) would become a family thing. Raph would go into his room, find the phone gone, and shout, "Alright, which one of you losers is hogging Mikey?" I don't know how long it would take before they healed enough where something like that could happen, so I didn't include it in the story, but I really believe it would, eventually.


End file.
